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Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find the perfect audience for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching over one thousand literary magazines. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Directory of Writers.

Download our free app to find readings and author events near you; explore indie bookstores, libraries, and other places of interest to writers; and connect with the literary community in your city or town.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Directory of Writers.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Take a guided tour of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, and many other cities. We asked authors, booksellers, publishers, editors, and others to share the places they go to connect with writers of the past, to the bars and cafés where today’s authors give readings, and to those sites that are most inspiring for writing.

Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

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FIRST OF ALL…
I receive and benefit from a number of magazines
for writers—Poets & Writers Magazine being my favorite. Recently, however, my status as happy subscriber has
become tenuous because of a certain trend that I find disturbing—exemplified
by, though by no means restricted to, "First Things First: The Fifth Annual
Debut Poets Roundup" by Kevin Larimer (January/February
2010). I noticed that all twelve profiled poets hold graduate degrees in
creative writing. While my aesthetic sensibilities are not entirely
inhospitable to such programs and the parchments they purvey, I'm afraid the
ubiquity of ordained writers as representatives of the craft is disturbing and,
for me, distasteful. And I doubt I am alone in these sentiments. In fact, I
presume that a good portion, if not a majority, of subscribers are aspiring,
uncredentialed writers. The point is this: How truly inspiring to such writers
are the conquests (read publishing credits) of the duly degreed minority?
Because the message is this: If you are busy raising children, do not query. If
your mother's illness has kept you from graduate school, busy your pen otherwise.
If you think life itself, its redolence and noise, its passion and ennui, its
earths and stars, are sufficient qualifications for the life poetic, well...have
you read our magazine lately? More disturbing still is the realization that
neither coincidence (which is benign) nor editorial discrimination (which is
healthy) can account for the trend itself. That all your debut poets just so
happen to have a competitive advantage in the publishing market is only
symptomatic—a function of the same market's being supersaturated by graduates
of the plenitude of programs that confer such an advantage in the first place.
Have we permanently situated higher degrees as the only stepping-stones to
success as a writer? Should the busy mother, the dutiful son, and the wide-eyed
wanderer just forfeit, wave their pitiful manuscripts like white flags, and get
back to making the world go around? Well, since I put it that way, maybe it's
for the best.JONATHAN SCOTTBirmingham, Alabama

BEYOND BELLY DANCING
I found "Beyond
Words: Five Writers Who Practice Other Arts" by Suzanne Pettypiece
(January/February 2010) an enjoyable and invaluable read. In addition to
writing fiction and poetry, I have practiced the art of belly dance for the
past three years. Time and again I emerge from the dance studio and return to
my writing to find that dance informs and strengthens my primary craft. Often
this happens in subtle, meditative ways I cannot pinpoint, but lately I've
noticed the more overt influence of dance on my writing. I've come away from
dance practice thinking about negative space, repetition with variation,
rhythm, persona—but from a fresh angle that I wouldn't be able to access by
simply writing.VANESSA BLAKESLEEMaitland, Florida

I really enjoyed
the way Pettypiece shed light on the often-overlooked fact that many writers
have almost "secret lives" in other artistic disciplines. One discipline
missing in this go-round, however, is music. Aside from the Rock Bottom Remainders—the band of
literary stars, including Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Barry, that performs
for fun and charity—there are many writers who maintain a dialogue between
their fiction and music.ROBERT MORGAN FISHERWoodland Hills, California

ONLINE AND UPWARD
I was glad to see
Kevin Nance covering the transition happening at TriQuarterly ("A Tough Transition for TriQuarterly," January/February 2010). I don't disagree with
his conclusion that the venerable print magazine was folded by Northwestern
University due to economic factors, and that for some reason the university
chose to spin it as a positive move that denotes progress without recognizing
loss. That said, Nance's article didn't explore what many are trying to do to
salvage the situation and to ensure that the online version of TriQuarterly is as much an opportunity as possible, rather
than a "catastrophe," as Edward Hirsch calls it. Part of the reason that the
situation is being seen only in its bleakest light is that no one seems to be
digging beyond the agitating statements of the university librarian—who has,
really, nothing to do with TriQuarterly—and the press release of distanced university officials. Meanwhile, as
the faculty supervisors for the new online incarnation, Susan Harris and I have
dedicated ourselves to preserving as much of TriQuarterly's legacy as possible. For example, we have
initiated an archive project that will rerelease many of the valuable pieces
the journal has published over its long history. We will be working to train
the new editors of the magazine to ensure that TriQuarterly Online remains a quality publication showcasing the best
of experimental and traditional writing from the United States and abroad.
Nance's article did not mention that Harris was formerly the director of
Northwestern University Press, that I have been an editor for more than fifteen
years, or that Reginald Gibbons, himself the longtime editor of TriQuarterly prior to Susan Firestone Hahn and Ian Morris, has
been supervising us in our efforts. Those most closely affiliated with the
magazine's transition are not those who made the call to fold it, but fellow
editors and writers who are deeply committed to making the very best of a
tumultuous situation for the sake of ongoing literary culture. While we are all
saddened and angered by the way economic powers devalue literature and those
who work in its trenches, I have hope that TriQuarterly Online can indeed engage readers into future generations
while being less reliant on deep institutional pockets thanks to its new, more
economically streamlined forum.GINA FRANGELLOEvanston, Illinois

COVER LINES
I just received my January/February 2010 issue in the mail and had to write—fabulous cover. I haven't been this
wowed since your July/August 2008 cover of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce
in a park. I just love a bit of nostalgia mixed with the unexpected.D. EUBANKS
Greenville, South Carolina

WHY WE WRITE
I'd honestly thought
to give up writing before I read Cecilia Ward Jones's "Why We Write: The Art of
Perseverance" (January/February 2010). I taped it to the wall next
to my computer; it imbues me with hope.
AUDREY JAY
Kingman, Arizona

HIP TO BE SQUARE
Thank you for
Jeremiah Chamberlin's wonderful article about a magical place ("Inside Indie
Bookstores: Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi," January/February 2010). As a
book publicist, I am a huge fan and booster of independent bookstores. Square
Books has a special place in my heart and I leap at every opportunity to travel
with my clients when we have an event in Oxford.
Excerpted from a comment posted on pw.org/magazine byJULIE SCHOERKE

THE AUDACITY OF LISTS
I was disappointed
with "Fifty of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World" (January/February
2010) when I saw that Barack Obama was the grand finale. Have some respect for
the art of writing and the people who actually devote themselves to the craft.
When evaluating literature the question must be what is written not by whom.STEVE MILLERManhattan, Kansas

I find this list
distressing, and not only because I don't agree with every name on it (or every
name left off). I don't think Poets & Writers Magazine should be promoting contention in this manner.
Moreover, the squibs attached to the names reveal some pretty punk values, in
my opinion. Frederick Seidel knows how to spend money: That's a recommendation?
I know quite a few poets smarter than Anne Carson. And so on. This is just
ridiculous and depressing, because if this is what Poets &
Writers Magazine has come to,
it's a sign of how deeply sunk is the entire literary enterprise.
Excerpted
from a comment posted on pw.org/magazine byKCHERRY

[CORRECTION]
The name of the store adjacent to Square Books in
Oxford, Mississippi, was misspelled in "Inside Indie Bookstores"
(January/February 2010) by Jeremiah Chamberlin. The store is Neilson's
Department Store.